


So Don't Ask Where I'm Going

by clotpolesonly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Laura Hale, Alpha Laura Hale, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Family Feels, Gen, Guilt, Notfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 02:41:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16076663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clotpolesonly/pseuds/clotpolesonly
Summary: she should’ve brought him with her. he had tried to insist on coming along but it had been so obvious how much the idea of returning upset him, how much the idea ofeither of themreturning upset him. she had sworn up and down that she would be fine, nothing was going to happen, she didn’t need any backup.she wishes she hadn’t been so careless. or maybe it was arrogance, she doesn’t know. all she knows is that she needs Derek back by her side. not just because alphas heal faster when they’re with their pack but because she’s scared and hurting and she doesn’t want to die alone.--in which Laura doesn't die from Peter's attack





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay so, full disclosure, i have absolutely no idea where this is going or if it's going anywhere, lol. i started it for _last year's_ LHAW as a quick idea that i was just going to leave there. but then i wrote some more, but just a little bit, and now i have no idea if i'm going to continue (or HOW to continue it, if i do). so if anyone has ideas, feel free to leave them in the comments and we'll see what happens XD

Laura is lured back to Beacon Hills. she comes alone, leaving Derek back in NY because she knows how much he hates that town and all the memories that come with it, and she refuses to admit that she’s scares. she refuses to acknowledge the creeping dread that tingles on the back of her neck because Derek’s not the only one with bad memories and the sense of impending doom is just the ptsd talking, right?

and then she’s attacked. her own uncle, feral and most of the way out of his mind, flies at her in the middle of the woods under the light of the full moon, and there was no way she can win. not when her opponent is crazed and impossible to predict. not when she can’t bring herself to hurt him no matter what because she  _did this to him._  she left him alone to fester in his condition, practically an omega, abandoned by his only pack. she did this.

he doesn’t finish the job. she makes it out of the woods before he can end things, but she’s badly injured and her wounds aren’t healing. it’s got to be the guilt, she thinks, but knowing that doesn’t do her any good. the guilt is still there and it won’t let her walk away from the encounter unscathed when she deserves every drop of blood on her skin.

that doesn’t mean she actually wants to die, though. weak and beaten, gasping against at least a few broken ribs, Laura half-limps and half-crawls along the edge of the woods, barely resisting the urge to howl for her brother even though she knows he’d never hear her from where he is. she lost her phone somewhere in the fight, but there’s a chance he’s sense her distress. for all she knows he’s already on a plane heading her way. or he’s watching tv and stress eating with no idea that his alpha and sister is dying. either way, she needs help a little closer to home.

she comes across a scent. it’s a little faded, a few days old probably, but it’s familiar. not the kind of familiar that comes with pack or friendship or anything like that (understandable considering how long they’ve been away from this town) but it feels like safety, and Laura is following it before she even questions if it’s a good idea.

she finds a blue jeep and a teenage boy who smells  _so close_  to the safety she remembers from after the fire, the stolid man in uniform who wrapped a shaking Derek in his jacket, who held Laura back from running into the flames, who hugged her tight and turned her away so she didn’t have to watch anymore. this boy screams a little bit, flails a bit more, and stares at Laura with wide brown eyes when her bloody hand leaves a print on his window. but despite his palpable panic, he scrambles out of the vehicle, already babbling about 911 and hospitals.

“no,” Laura gasps out, clutching at his sleeve with one hand and her slashed up stomach with the other. “my brother,” she says. “call my brother.”

the boy mentions hospitals again, trying to drag her up into the car, but Laura shakes her head. she flashes her eyes, luminous red in the dark, and the boy almost drops her out of shock.

“my brother,” Laura says again. “just call Derek. please.”

she loses consciousness with her nose pressed into the soft fabric of the boy’s hoodie, slumped weakly against him, half in the jeep and half out of it. with the comforting scent of the kindly Sheriff in her nose, she can’t help but sink into the darkness, hoping that she lives long enough to see her brother one more time. that’s all she can hope for, really, and already more than she deserves.


	2. Chapter 2

Laura wakes somewhere new. the scent is all different, barely a trace of the comforting scent she had been chasing. she can’t seem to open her eyes to check her surroundings though.

she’s cold all over, flushed and shivering, and she’s never had a real fever before but she’s pretty sure this is what it feels like. everything hurts and the only thing that keeps her from passing out again is the worry that if she does, she won’t wake up again.

that, and the voices. two voices nearby, one vaguely familiar and one not, back and forth in hissed whispers.

“what the  _fuck,_  Stiles?”

“she said no hospital! and dude, her eyes turned bright freaking red, i don’t think that’s a hospital kind of thing!”

“so you bring her here??”

“well, i couldn’t exactly take her to my place, my dad’s off shift. at least your mom won’t be home until morning”

his  _dad,_  of course, that’s why this random kid smelled so strangely familiar. he must be the Sheriff’s son. Laura remembers getting a glimpse of him at the station after the fire had been put out, small and wide-eyed and hiding behind the reception desk, watching the spectacle they must’ve made.

that whole night is filled with ash in her memory, and it still burns. she’s burning now and freezing too, shuddering hard enough to shake the couch she’s been laid out on - a couch that smells foreign and wrong when all she wants is her brother.

she should’ve brought him with her. he had tried to insist on coming along but it had been so obvious how much the idea of returning upset him, how much the idea of  _either of them_ returning upset him. she had sworn up and down that she would be fine, nothing was going to happen, she didn’t need any backup.

she wishes she hadn’t been so careless. or maybe it was arrogance, she doesn’t know. all she knows is that she needs Derek back by her side. not just because alphas heal faster when they’re with their pack but because she’s scared and hurting and she doesn’t want to die alone.

“what’s she saying?”

“i think it’s  _Derek,_  she said earlier to call her brother Derek”

“did you?”

“i found his number in her phone, but he isn’t answering. i called like 6 times”

“well keep trying. and i gotta do something about these wounds, man. i’ve seen shit like this at the clinic, she’s gonna get infected if we leave them like this”

Laura passes out again with the white hot pain of disinfectant in her torn up stomach, the new boy murmuring frantic apologies, and the distant tinny sound of Derek’s voicemail message in her ears

_please pick up_


	3. Chapter 3

Laura thinks they move her. she’s in and out of consciousness, too deep in pain she’s not used to and guilt she doesn’t know how to process, but she thinks she remembers flashes of moving scenery and the sensation of being manhandled and snippets of conversation.

“Stiles, my mom is gonna be home soon, we gotta move her somewhere”

and 

“–still not answering, what the hell, is his phone  _off_?”

and 

“there’s money in her wallet,  _wow_ that’s a lot of–”

in the meantime she floats. it’s not as pleasant a sensation as she might’ve expected. she thinks she might dream, but so much of it is memory that she’s not sure it really counts as dreaming – Peter’s twisted face; the slack, empty look on his face when he had turned to face her; the unbridled savagery in his electric blue eyes as he leapt.

he had gone right for her throat. he didn’t hesitate even a second. her uncle genuinely tried to kill her, and it replays on a loop again and again as her body struggles and fails to find the will necessary to heal her wounds. 

she can’t help feeling like she earned this.

she doesn’t know how long she’s “asleep” but the scents are all different again – and much more unpleasant – when she wakes to shouts very nearby. she doesn’t hear the words at first, but as they draw closer, one voice sticks out above the others.

Derek.

she whimpers. it’s the best she can do when half her stomach is still in shreds and it still feels like there’s blood in her throat, but Derek hears her. he always hears her, even through three apartment walls when she’s muffling her sobs with the thickest pillow she can find, and just like those late nights, he’s right there, crowding in close and grabbing her hand.

“hey,” he says. “hey Laura, you’re okay. i’m here. you’re gonna be okay.”

just his voice is enough to bring tears to Laura’s eyes, but his touch sends relief crashing through her like a physical wave. she draws in the deepest breath she’s managed since she caught sight of Peter in that clearing and shudders out his name.

Derek shushes her, and some of the pain leaches out of her as black tendrils claw their way up his arm. there’s a resurgence of muttering in the background but Laura can’t care about that.

“what happened?” Derek asks – demands, really, but that’s just how he is. “Laura what the hell happened? who did this? i  _felt_ it all the way in new york. i hopped on the first plane i could find as soon as i knew something was wrong.”

lightheaded with the euphoric rush of the pain drain, Laura gasps out “ _Peter_ ” and Derek’s hand clamps down tight on hers. he’s shaking his head.

“no, that – that doesn’t make sense, Peter is – ”

“he’s not himself.”

or maybe he is. maybe he really just hates Laura  _that much_  for leaving him behind. she’d thought she was doing the right thing at the time, leaving him with the best care they could get and drawing the hunters as far away from their most vulnerable pack member as possible, but right now, seeing what he’s become in the meantime, Laura knows they were wrong.

she was so wrong and she’s paying for it.

“he’s not himself,” she says again because Derek’s eyes are wide and disbelieving and  _devastated_  and she can’t bring herself to hurt him anymore just yet. it was easier somehow to think Peter had lost his mind than to think he had lost who he  _was_  enough to murder his own niece. they shouldn’t both have to feel the loss of him at once.

“ _okay wait_ ”

the sheriff’s kid, Stiles. he and his friend are still there, hovering at the edge of what looks like a shitty motel room. he – very bravely – takes a step forward, ignoring Derek’s most powerful glare, and says “if this was a person who did this, and that person is still out there…that seems like something we should be worrying about.”

“ _you_  don’t need to be worried about anything,” Derek growls. “ _you_  should be leaving”

“ _we_  saved your sister’s life, how about a little gratitude? and maybe some respect while you’re at it”

Derek growls louder. Laura rallies enough strength to squeeze his hand in warning. he gives her a sharp frustrated look but pulls himself back.

“she really needs medical treatment,” Stiles’ friend says, earnest and concerned. “seriously that shit is gnarly. you’re really not gonna go to a hospital?”

“no hospital,” Laura says again and she lets her eyes flash. it takes a lot more effort than it usually does but she hears the sharp intake of breath from both the boys anyway. “i’ll be fine, trust me.”

she hopes she’ll be fine. with Derek here now, kneeling at her bedside and holding onto her like a lifeline, she thinks she might be fine. she was afraid earlier of dying alone but even scarier is the thought of leaving Derek to  _live_ alone. she can’t do that. no matter how much she may have failed Peter, she can’t fail Derek too by letting herself die now.

Derek doesn’t look convinced by her assertion. he’s got his jaw clenched in that way that looks angry to most people but will always only remind her of that time when he was nine and spent ten minutes stubbornly arguing with her that he  _hadn’t_  broken his arm just because he would rather have a nonsense argument than let her see him cry.

she squeezes his hand again and he looks at her, all the pent up fear showing through in his eyes if nowhere else. she looks steadily back and, after a moment, some of his tension falls away. he sits back on his heels with a shaky sigh but he doesn’t let go of her hand.

Laura turns back to the boys. now that she gets a good look at them they can’t be more than sixteen, jittery and uncertain and exhausted but still  _there._ they both had her blood on their clothes.

“thank you for what you did,” she says. “you don’t need to be involved anymore though. you should be getting home”

“actually,” the friend says with a weak lopsided grin “pretty sure school starts in like an hour”

“oh god don’t remind me,” Stiles groans.

“go on,” Laura says again. her eyes are drooping even as she fights to keep them open just a little while longer. having her pack with her is soothing, her hyper-alertness shutting down now that she has someone she can trust to watch her back while she heals, and the constant draw of her pain seems to taking the last of her energy with it. “you’ve done enough for me. you can go.”

she’s pretty sure more words are exchanged between the boys and her brother, but Derek never lets go of her hand. she knows this isn’t over. just from the way Stiles looked at her, the genuine worry on his friend’s face, she had a sneaking suspicion this wouldn’t be the last she saw of them. they would want answers, if nothing else, and to make sure that she didn’t die as soon as she was out of their sight.

and there’s Peter to deal with. he’s still out there. himself or not, he’s out there, he’s apparently violent, and that’s not something that she can ignore, especially if there’s a possibility that it’s not  _just her_  he’s willing to attack.

there are things she needs to do, but her mind is too fuzzy now to think of what they are. she’s barely aware of being jostled further onto the bed, of blankets being pulled up and tucked in around her, of the lights dimming. she’s more aware of Derek slipping into the bed beside and the way his comforting warmth sinks into her to chase away the coldness of her substantial blood loss.

in the absence of pain and the presence of her brother, she can finally rest easy. everything else will have to wait.


End file.
